Author: Syed Zarir Hussain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: April 6, 2006
Come elections and the Muslims in Assam become
the darling of all political parties. And the scene is no different this time,
with the State currently in election mode.
Voting for the first of the two-stage elections
ended on Monday in 65 constituencies. A second and final phase of voting is
set for April 10 in the remaining 61 seats - a majority of the constituencies
are in areas where Muslim voters could tilt the electoral balance either way.
A vast stretch of this comparatively underdeveloped
belt in western Assam is now thronged by Muslim clergies of different hues
- many of them from influential religious seminaries spreading from Uttar
Pradesh to New Delhi.
First it was the Shahi Imam of New Delhi's
Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari, who made an exhaustive tour of Assam's Muslim
dominated areas campaigning for the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF),
a Muslim-based political party formed last year by a wealthy businessman,
Badruddin Ajmal.
The AUDF is contesting in 66 Assembly seats
in Assam with the party having an electoral understanding with the Nationalist
Congress Party (NCP).
Mr Bukhari managed to pull large crowds wherever
he went saying the AUDF was the first step in his long-term vision of building
a pan-Indian political party that would safeguard Muslim interests 'without
closing the doors to other communities'.
Some among the Muslims here in this predominantly
minority area in western Assam took the Imam's sermons of voting out the ruling
Congress party as some kind of a fatwa.
"We were very impressed by his lectures,"
Zainul Abedeen, a primary schoolteacher, said.
Muslims constitute 30 percent of Assam's 26
million people, and play a decisive role in 30 to 40 constituencies where
the Congress has traditionally won.
Unnerved by the Imam's presence, the Congress
roped in half-a-dozen Muslim clergies from the influential Majlis Olama-e-Hind
(Organisation of Indian Olamas) from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh.
Led by the organisation's head cleric, Mufti
Adbul Mannan Kalimi, the Olama-e-Hind campaigned in various parts of the State
asking the Muslims to vote for the Congress.
"We are aware that the Muslims in Assam
have many problems and still remain a backward community. But they are still
safe under the Congress," mufti Kalimi said.
"We shall advocate for the welfare of
the Muslims before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia
Gandhi," he added.
The Congress sponsored clerics lashed out
at the Shahi Imam saying he was an 'agent of the Bharatiya Janata Party' (BJP).
"The Shahi Imam's campaign in Assam would
only help the BJP," mufti Kalimi said in a meeting. Local Muslims, however,
come to attend election rallies held in their areas no matter which party
was organising the event.
